I quit social media for 4 years

Here’s what I’ve learned

4 years ago, I was at a very low point in my life mentally. I suffered from imposter syndrome (still do) very severely and never truly felt satisfied with my life. I had an idea of deactivating my social media accounts for a week (probably my 1000th attempt). This time though, that one week turns into 4 years (what a procrastinator I am) and it is one of the best decisions in my life.

4 years apart

2016: I had around 1000 friends on Facebook and about 1000 “followers”. I don’t think they were actually “following”, more like shop owners, who are too cheap to run Facebook ads, befriended me to sell me things I don’t need. I spent around 2–3 hours every day, sometimes 4, from the moment I woke up until the very last minute of my day, mindlessly scrolling on Facebook. When I realized how much time I spent on Facebook, I turned it off, only to find myself on Instagram, catching up with strangers’ beautifully crafted images of their perfect lives.

2021: to be fair, I STILL use my Facebook page to upload my writings and I have a Facebook (to run that Facebook page) with about 15 close friends. But basically, I removed the “social” and kept the “media”. I spend around 5 minutes each day on Facebook to upload my writings/ check major news quickly/ stalk my exes (sometimes). I know how much time I use for Facebook because I have a time blocker. Once a week, I will spend around 15mins to catch up with my close friends. So in total, I spend around 5×6+15=45mins a week (or 6.4 minutes a day) on Facebook. Other than that, I don’t comment, like, share, read other pages unless they are my favorites.

Why I left

1. Surveillance Capitalism
   I felt watched. This may seem obvious and inevitable but it’s horrifying. I work in the Adtech industry. My company collects billions of data points, analyses them to target ads more accurately. But what most people don’t know is we not only use customers’ data to better our algorithms for our services, we also sell those data to data brokers or bid them on the data market (this is absolutely legal). One “fun” fact I’ve learned from working in this industry is that there are only 2 industries that call customers “users”: illegal drugs and software. I know Facebook probably has already sold my data and milked my online existence to its fullest. I know our humankind has come to a place of no return, but this fact bothers me so much that I feel motivated to leave as few digital footprints as possible.
2. Time-consuming/ Addictive
   There is another similarity between the drugs and the software industry: addiction inducement. On average, an average person spends about 2 hours and 24 minutes a day on social media (Philippines people spend 3 hours and 57 minutes a day on social media channels while Japanese spends 48 minutes). It was built to be addictive. The software developers are fully aware of the ethical issues of the dopamine-driven feedback loop, and they do it anyway. If you think you can control yourself, just take a look at your screen time trackers. Mine used to be a scary amount of about 3 hours a day.
3. Loneliness
   I never had time to be alone yet I was so lonely. Even with so much time spending on my own, I am always connected in one way or another. On the other hand, despite having thousands of friends connected at all times, I couldn’t talk about my feelings openly with anyone on my long friend list.
4. Peer pressure
   Rather than a way of catching up, Facebook can be one more way of keeping up. What’s worse is that now we feel the need to keep up not just with our closest friends and neighbors, but with hundreds of others whose manufactured updates continually remind us of how glorious life should be. For many, Facebook is less about looking up friends than it is about looking at friends. Research tells us that, on average, Facebook users spend more time examining others’ pages than adding content to their own.
   I used to compare myself to others unconsciously. No matter how much I achieved, I never felt “good enough”. I remember receiving a scholarship that I felt proud of until I shared the news on Facebook and found out that one of my friends got into a better scholarship program. So I hid the post because I thought it wasn’t “impressive enough”. I got a good job, then somebody else had a perfect boyfriend and I didn’t. I had a fun single life, then my friend got happily married and had cute kids. The list goes on. Some of my friends who looked at my profile thought I was a high-achiever (a very subjective term) and relatively happy and grateful. Wrong. I was miserable, to say the least.
   Since I left Facebook and Instagram, I no longer have access to my friends’ latest updates all the time, so I do what any friend would do: I pick up the phone, text or call them, ask “what’s up”. I make time to see them in person, or at least have a one-on-one conversation over texts. When you hear about someone’s achievement online, it’s only on the surface level. You have no idea what they have been through to get there, how many failures they have experienced. So it’s only natural that you can get jealous. As toxic as it is, we oftentimes nurture jealousy unintentionally.
5. You are what you eat
   Social networks provide small bitesize chunks of information that are easy to swallow but rarely offer substance. Additionally, it’s hard to distinguish truth from fiction — there’s no regulation, no labeling, only a continuous stream of moreish — but unfiltered — information. Like an echo chamber, social media algorithms enable you to see only people you agree with, whom you like, or people who share similar cultural backgrounds. To me, this limits my worldview. I know some people are selective with their connections (good for you!), but I wasn’t one of them. My Facebook had become such a mess that I no longer wanted to clean.

What I’ve learned

1. I’m not that important
   A lot of people don’t know I existed and nothing changes after I was gone. Many people know my birthday but only the ones I contact regularly in real life will celebrate it. When I was gone, the number of people who care remains the same
2. Indirect heartfelt messages are stupid
   The best way to express my feelings towards someone (ie: close friends, family) is to tell them directly, not through a Facebook post
3. Social media fuels our desire for consumption
   This is crazy but I went out with 10 different friends/groups of friends wearing the exact same dress. I don’t post my photos online so no one knows I wear the same dress over and over again. It’s a nice dress, and I washed it, don’t get me wrong. But if I still use social media, no way I repeat my outfit for different posts. Hell no. Also, since I don’t know whatever styles are on-trend, I just wear whatever I feel like, with no pressure. I no longer feel the urge of shopping to impress anyone.
4. Social media is great for networking
   This I can’t deny. I really miss the banter I had with my not-so-close friends. I am still close with my best friends, but I lost a lot of acquaintances. Within the 4 years of no contact, I was invited to only 3 weddings despite that I was super social in my early 20s. The reason is that people just…forgot about me. They no longer see me interact with their posts or their wedding photos. I simply “disappeared” so it’s okay that they forgot. However, is it worth the trade between getting invited to some parties with people I’m not close with and my peace of mind?
5. Losing my authenticity
   As much as I hate to admit this, I was a fraud. Not that I lied or anything, but I wasn’t myself. I feel comfortable now with my blog, but I wasn’t feeling the same way with my social media before. Expressing my true self is hard, especially when there are thousands of people watching and judging. A few people always keep my best interests at heart, but strangers won’t. I felt obligated to express myself a certain way so I didn’t appear pathetic, too vulnerable, or oversharing. No one who is having the happiest day of their life spending half of it documenting how happy they are. But I was one of them. My Facebook, too, turned into a factory where I manufactured my ingenuine happiness.

Final Thoughts

Would I reactivate my accounts again? Maybe, but it will be for a good reason, for example, selling something for charity, or something big enough to justify my action. I love social media for giving me a platform to speak my mind, for my younger self to connect with many valuable Internet friends and explore various learning opportunities. However, great tools come with great responsibility, I think. I don’t encourage anyone to give up their entire digital personality, but I hope people are aware that it’s possible to leave if you feel miserable or at least minimize it to a healthy level.

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Chrome extension I love:
– Stayfocusd: time-blocker. You can set how many minutes a day you want to spend on certain sites
– Newsfeed eradicator: remove all newsfeed on Facebook and replace it with boring quotes